An English-language news site in Germany called The Local interviewed a 39-year-old man from Florida named Andrew about his brothel-frequenting habits. He said he originally visited Germany in his mid-20s because he was interested in the car culture and the history, but has since kept coming back three times annually because prostitution is legal and the prostitutes are so affordable...

'There's a risk of being arrested in the U.S., but not here,' he said. 'And it's cheaper... Twenty minutes with a woman in Frankfurt costs as little as €20 [$27], he said. 'This is more than enough time,' he admitted.

whither_apophis:Pretty sure prostitution was legal before 2002. I remember Hamburg had a red light district on 1987.

/one damn year! But no we gotta do the school exchange in '87...

That's what I thought. I was stationed in Germany in the late 90s, and prostitutes were everywhere, and pretty blatant about it.

They used to have these little vans with a mattress in the back, and they'd park next to the main road heading towards the U.S. base with their dome light on, so you could check out the goods. There used to be this one with huge fake tits and a spiky blonde hairdo that she ripped off of Bart Simpson. The combination was pretty weird.

Downtown, we found out that "discos" were nightclubs, and "night clubs" (in English) were brothels.

Theaetetus:An English-language news site in Germany called The Local interviewed a 39-year-old man from Florida named Andrew about his brothel-frequenting habits. He said he originally visited Germany in his mid-20s because he was interested in the car culture and the history, but has since kept coming back three times annually because prostitution is legal and the prostitutes are so affordable...

'There's a risk of being arrested in the U.S., but not here,' he said. 'And it's cheaper... Twenty minutes with a woman in Frankfurt costs as little as €20 [$27], he said. 'This is more than enough time,' he admitted.

This right here is a lesson in modern economics. Some commodities are so naturally plentiful that a profit can be made selling them only if an an aritfical market barrier is erected that severly limits the supply.

Once prosittuion becomes legal, the sex trade market is subject to "monopolistic competition" which, despite its somewhat misleading name is the term for a lot of small businesses selling a nearly indistinguishable product (think gas stations as an example) the only thing they have to really compete on is price, so market pressures drive their prices to be nearly equal and as low as possible to allow the competitors to stay in business. (the average gas station makes 1-2 cents per gallon on thier gas)

Since there are really no "wholesale" costs to the suppliers of sex, this means that their prices will freefall to levels that with eventually collapse the market as no one can make a living at it anymore

Magorn:This right here is a lesson in modern economics. Some commodities are so naturally plentiful that a profit can be made selling them only if an an aritfical market barrier is erected that severly limits the supply.

Once prosittuion becomes legal, the sex trade market is subject to "monopolistic competition" which, despite its somewhat misleading name is the term for a lot of small businesses selling a nearly indistinguishable product (think gas stations as an example) the only thing they have to really compete on is price, so market pressures drive their prices to be nearly equal and as low as possible to allow the competitors to stay in business. (the average gas station makes 1-2 cents per gallon on thier gas)

Since there are really no "wholesale" costs to the suppliers of sex, this means that their prices will freefall to levels that with eventually collapse the market as no one can make a living at it anymore

Magorn:This right here is a lesson in modern economics. Some commodities are so naturally plentiful that a profit can be made selling them only if an an aritfical market barrier is erected that severly limits the supply.

Once prosittuion becomes legal, the sex trade market is subject to "monopolistic competition" which, despite its somewhat misleading name is the term for a lot of small businesses selling a nearly indistinguishable product (think gas stations as an example) the only thing they have to really compete on is price, so market pressures drive their prices to be nearly equal and as low as possible to allow the competitors to stay in business. (the average gas station makes 1-2 cents per gallon on thier gas)

Since there are really no "wholesale" costs to the suppliers of sex, this means that their prices will freefall to levels that with eventually collapse the market as no one can make a living at it anymore

So you're saying that the market has decided that all women's mouths are the same and a better looking whore doesn't neccessarily make better money.

jaybeezey:Magorn: This right here is a lesson in modern economics. Some commodities are so naturally plentiful that a profit can be made selling them only if an an aritfical market barrier is erected that severly limits the supply.

Once prosittuion becomes legal, the sex trade market is subject to "monopolistic competition" which, despite its somewhat misleading name is the term for a lot of small businesses selling a nearly indistinguishable product (think gas stations as an example) the only thing they have to really compete on is price, so market pressures drive their prices to be nearly equal and as low as possible to allow the competitors to stay in business. (the average gas station makes 1-2 cents per gallon on thier gas)

Since there are really no "wholesale" costs to the suppliers of sex, this means that their prices will freefall to levels that with eventually collapse the market as no one can make a living at it anymore

So you're saying that the market has decided that all women's mouths are the same and a better looking whore doesn't neccessarily make better money.

Yeah maybe that's because good looking girls don't want to prostitute themselves? Jesus, have you seen the "pornstars without makeup" pictures?

As a good conservative capitalist, I repeat LEGALIZE IT HERE in the US.

But I want some severe penalties for those a-holes who traffic in women. Plenty of women here willing to charge for it (or hell, give it away for free), as a trip to any nightclub will show you. Hopefully most people would rather pay more for a willing volunteer then get a savings from a sex slave.

rwfan:Infernalist: Rather sad and disappointing. Where'd the break-down happen? Are there not enough government inspectors to keep up with the sex trade?

Why the disconnect between the need for regulation and the actual implementation?

The break down is the fall of the iron curtain. Thanks to communism there is no shortage of poverty stricken young women from Eastern Europe. Same thing is happening in Turkey a top destination for victims of human trafficing in relation to the sex trade.

Furthermore page down a bit and you will see an article about massage parlors in Vermont.

As a good conservative capitalist, I repeat LEGALIZE IT HERE in the US.

But I want some severe penalties for those a-holes who traffic in women. Plenty of women here willing to charge for it (or hell, give it away for free), as a trip to any nightclub will show you. Hopefully most people would rather pay more for a willing volunteer then get a savings from a sex slave.

I would be willing to get behind a buy American campaign for this too!

As a good conservative capitalist, I repeat LEGALIZE IT HERE in the US.

But I want some severe penalties for those a-holes who traffic in women. Plenty of women here willing to charge for it (or hell, give it away for free), as a trip to any nightclub will show you. Hopefully most people would rather pay more for a willing volunteer then get a savings from a sex slave.

Generally, customers want the "customer is always right" attitude. So they prefer submissive hookers. Some hookers have to be taught submissiveness or they won't be successful. So pimps are doing them a favor, like a beneficent mentor.

The Speigel article that was the source of that story was interesting, but it seemed a little one-sided.

It seems like this is as much an immigration problem as anything.

I wonder if part of the reason the Swedish anti-prostitution laws are being so effective at reducing the number of prostitutes is that they're heading to Germany instead. I remember talking to a hooker in San Francisco that moved there from NYC because Giuliani was cracking down on them while Willie Brown was pretty much letting prostitution fly.

bwilson27:Yeah, but the word that begins with an A and ends with an L has gone up in price 100%.

Adderall? Hey boy howdy don't I know it. First I paid that seventh-grade kid $2 a pill and then I paid her $2.50 a pill and then I paid her $4 a pill and then she was an eighth grader and then I paid her $5 a pill and then her prescription ran out because her mom said the pills weren't helping her (probably because I was taking them all, ha ha! see they couldn't help her because she wasn't actually taking them because she was selling them to me) and now I had to find a totally different person to buy my Adderall from and this guy wasn't even in any grade at all because he was an adult and adults charge a lot more for Adderall I've noticed like this guy was charging me $10 and then it was $25 for two and that works out to $12.50 a piece so in fact I actually have to disagree with you because in my experience the price of the word that begins with A and ends with L has gone up in price 525% although I suppose now that I think about it you might not have been talking about Adderall at all let's see what are other words like that obviously we'd be talking about nouns here how about admiral aerogel airfoil alcohol amobarbital angel anthill animal anvil appeal approval archrival arsenal aspergill asphodel atlatl avowal awl axel okay I think that's most of them now we just have to research prices for all these things and see which has doubled in price and hey where are you going can I come with you wanna ride bikes?

82,000,000 people in Germany, yeah, that million men pay for sex number seems low.

If you just look at German men from 16 up (that's how they break down the numbers), you end up with about 34 million. 60% of the country claim some sort of Christianity. Even if you go with 1/3 of them as actually devout, you're now down to around 27 million. So, yeah, you're talking about an average of once a month per non-Fundie, adult male. That seems kind of reasonable to me.